AUSTIN In the world of Hollywood, the word sequel usually is synonymous with superheroes, comic books, and as many special effects as can be hurled at an audience. All in 3-D, of course.

But Before Midnight, the latest from Austin director Richard Linklater, is a sequel of a different sort. The third film in his Before series  Before Sunrise was the first in 1995, followed by Before Sunset in 2004  is the latest snapshot of a nearly 20-year romantic relationship that has grown from flirtation and infatuation into what now appears to be middle-age malaise.

Starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as writer Jesse and environmentalist Celine, the Before films revolve around long conversations that feel as if theyve been ripped from real life. In Before Sunrise, the young 20-something couple meet on a train in Vienna and share a night together, not sure if they will ever see each other again. In Before Sunset, they meet nearly a decade later in Paris, where Jesses doing a book reading  and is married to someone else and a dad.

In Before Midnight, opening Friday, 40-ish Jesse and Celine are together, have two daughters of their own, but find that  during an emotionally stormy Greek vacation  getting what you want can still leave you wanting more.

The movie stands out from the summers pack of action and adventure films with its emphasis on words and wit, all delivered in long, unbroken takes. This is a film that demands to be listened to, not just seen. As the Chicago Tribune smartly noted, it may be the best special effect you see this summer.

And though hes now 52, married and with children, Linklater  with his shaggy hair, T-shirt and jeans  has the look of a young fanboy who might be more interested in effects-driven eye candy than a film so reliant on the spoken word. But Before Midnight is a celebration of conversation.

Because much of the dialogue rings so true, Before Midnight has the feel of improvisatory back and forth, but Linklater says thats far from the truth. Its all scripted. Ive never improvised a line, he said during an interview at a hotel during South by Southwest on a March morning. I dont really understand how you do that. ... Thats not interesting to me. It sounds weird but every gesture, every beat is really workshopped and thought out.

In fact, Hawke and Delpy, listed as co-writers on the last two films along with Linklater, have been instrumental in devising their characters motivations and dialogue. The first film, inspired by a chance romantic encounter Linklater had with a woman in Philadelphia in the late 80s, was co-written with then-Austin writer Kim Krizan because the director wanted the input of a womans voice.

So, putting these movies together is truly a team effort, with each film having a nine-year gestation period.

It was the same kind of trajectory [with this film], says Linklater. About five years of not having any ideas and then at some point we sit down and do the hard work. Ethan and I will get together with Julie, and well start talking for a couple of years. Were just feeing our way through it. At some point, we sit down and do an outline where its like OK, this works, this works, and then we have our outline in our head for another year and then once we really get serious, its [like a] workshop.

Lots of directors ask you to be a part of their vision, and almost nobody asks you to have vision, Hawke, who has made eight films with Linklater, recently told the Austin American-Statesman. Its always the same deal. ... He always wants it to be our film and not his film. Almost every director is so full of mine and me; its a bore. Its nice when theyre so confident that they let you in.

Linklater says that, while he wasnt sure at first if he wanted to do a third film, fans of the first two kept asking him about it. The second one felt like the biggest leap. No one wanted that film but the three of us, he says with a laugh. The third one, it was almost like it was anticipated, I guess the way the second one ends. What happens? In the interim, people would ask Any chance to see Jesse and Celine again?

Highs and lows

Of course, in the meantime, Linklater was busy with lots of other films, including the well-received Bernie, a dark comedy starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine that is based on a true East Texas story about a mortician who murders a rich widow; and the much less loved Fast Food Nation, a comedic drama starring Greg Kinnear and Bruce Willis that is based on Eric Schlossers nonfiction bestseller about the dangers of the modern food industry.

Both were labors of love for Linklater.

What so fun about Bernie is that I got to make it, he says. Its been something Id been wanting to do since the late 90s. I got Skip Hollandsworth [who wrote the original article about the incident] at Texas Monthly to thinking about that as a movie. I was just happy to get it made. Its funny, you stick at something long enough, sometimes it actually happens.

Though Fast Food Nation was skewered by some critics  the New York Daily News called it dispiriting, unsubtle, and unpleasant  Linklater, a vegetarian, is still glad he made it. No one wanted to see the movie. I think they saw it as some kind of message movie that no one thought was very interesting at the time, he says. The people releasing it werent excited about it and it was never going to make a lot of money, quality or not...[But] its an issue in my life. I really pay attention to health issues and that never goes away. ... That was a fun film to make and I got to play with all those notions.

But might the subject matter have been better served by a documentary? I dont have the patience for [making] a documentary, he concedes. I think of documentaries all the time. There are a ton I would like to do but Im a storyteller in a different way. I like to help documentaries get made. ... Were in a great documentary age, but I dont really have the desire to do one.

(Despite his reluctance, Linklater did make the 2008 documentary Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach, a profile of University of Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido. He is also the creator of a documentary-style travel series on Hulu, Up to Speed, which follows host Timothy Speed Levitch as he takes viewers on a tour of forgotten monuments.)

They are part of a career that shows Linklater is not afraid of taking risks, whether its the live action-animation blend of Waking Life (2001) or a remake of The Bad News Bears (2005). This makes him arguably the most versatile of all the directors Terrence Malick, Robert Rodriguez, Wes Anderson  whove emerged from the Texas indie film scene.

Not anti-Hollywood

Unlike some of Linklaters indie-film contemporaries who started as cult favorites  say Sam Raimi, who went from the early, low-budget Evil Dead films to Spider-Man  and then went on to helm mega-blockbusters, Linklater hasnt really followed that path, though, as his résumé suggests, he has nothing against stepping into the mainstream.

Well, I kind of did it with School of Rock and other studio films. Ive turned down a lot of stuff that maybe fits that world, he says. But Ive got my eye out for things that would challenge me...I have a couple of things in development that are studio-ish, so who knows?

While many Linklater fans were clamoring for another film in the Before series, others are still waiting for a follow-up to his 1993 classic, Dazed and Confused, the breakthrough film about Texas teenage frustration that was the launching pad for Matthew McConaughey. But Linklater says not to hold your breath.

I have a thing Im trying to do about college life thats set in the early 80s, he says. That will be my sequel, but it wont be those same characters.

And what of Jesse and Celine? Will we get to listen in on their most intimate thoughts in another nine years? And every nine years after that?

I made a joke the other day, Well, well skip the next four chapters and well do a remake of Amour, he says with a laugh. I would hope actually that Celine and him have a little more humor. I love Amour [the French drama about an elderly couple that won the Best Foreign Language Oscar this year], but Jesse and Celine would be a little more comedic I think. I would think they would have something biting and funny to say about being that age.

Who knows? he continues. Weve all looked at each other and said, Were going to enjoy not thinking about it for five years.

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